Pritchard poised for Pembroke move
September 23, 2009
Written by Alan Good, in Club, Latest Stories, News
Munster man Adam Pritchard is one of a number of Irish internationals on the move in a busy transfer week on the national front.
The drag-flicking defender had been named as Cork C of I’s vice-captain this term, but is now on his way to national champions Pembroke Wanderers, where he will join fellow Cork natives and international team-mates Conor and David Harte.
The nine-times capped Pritchard stressed the move was down to geographical necessity rather than a desire to depart Garryduff, after he was accepted into a neuroscience masters course in Trinity College earlier this week. He follows fellow C of I man John Jermyn, who spent time at Serpentine Avenue a couple of years ago while completing law exams in the capital.
C of I's Adam Pritchard (front) is on the move to Pembroke as his studies have taken him to Dublin. Picture: Eoin Tyrrell
With Colin Kelly likely to be ruled out until the new year with an Achilles injury and Stu Loughrey on his way to Loughborough, Pritchard has an immediate chance to establish himself in a star-studded Pembroke line-up, and stake a claim for a place in their EuroHockey League squad.
Meanwhile, UCC will be privately pleased that one of their main rivals for the Chilean Cup intervarsities, Ulster Elks, have lost two of their international contingent to foreign shores.
Irish internationals Shirley McCay and Emma Clarke are both seeking pastures new after just a single season at Jordanstown. The former has joined the ever-increasing Ulster diaspora at the Belgian Dragons, along with Alex Speers, who moves from Pegasus. Men’s internationals Geoff McCabe, Eugene Magee and Mikey Watt are also in situ, with Mitch Darling and Phelie Maguire also in same league with Leuven.
Clarke, for her part, has joined English Premiership side Leicester as her work has taken her to England, while Ballymoney will have to do without the services of Megan Frazer as she takes up a scholarship to the University of Maryland that was confirmed earlier this year.
Meanwhile, Irish hockey is this week mourning the death of 72-times capped Harry Cahill, who passed away last Friday at the age of 79.
Widely regarded as the best goalkeeper to ever don the pads for Ireland, the Irish Hockey Hall of Fame inductee earned his caps during a 20-year period stretching from 1953 to 1973.
During that period, he was selected for three Olympic Games for Great Britain – finishing in fourth in Rome in 1960, ninth in Tokyo in 1964 and 12th in Mexico in 1968 where he was Britain’s oldest Olympian at those Games.
Cahill, who served with Pembroke Wanderers, Coventry and North Warwickshire at club level also played with the Irish side for the first European Nations Cup in 1970, aged 40.
I think its time the remaining Munster clubs either looked at applied to join The Leinister League or pushed for an extention of the IHL and also maybe have a second tier IHL .We are at nothing down here with the way hockey is going in Munster, all clubs will go back in standard,the so called big ones will get further and further away from winning a National competition and as for the hockey public ,well 3/4 matches in the Munster league just might bring you away from the fire.
Look at last weeks matches,the ones that teams turned up for,look at this week ends mens matches.How will a QUINS second team play feel like when he has lost 9 1 and the same again this Sat with all due respect to the players who give it everything on the pitch.What will motivate the goalkeepers of these second teams after looking at the ball maybe passing him by 20 times in 2 games.I do hope UCCdo well but they have just robbed Peter to pay Paul,it will not be Neils W fault if they dont do well.
If we do not get a bunch of 16/18 year olds into the system we might have 2/3 average teams left in 3/4 years if we are lucky, as the present internationals will be near retirement.
Womes hockey is similar but not as bad.At least there are plenty of girls secondary playing the game.If we wait for boys nationals schools to produce players,its so far away it will be all over.
Solution. We send up thousands of euros to the IHA for what,whay do the clubs get back.We waste thousands on senior, junior,u21 inter pros ,for what nothing. A up and coming player will show at 16/18 level . We are paying for 50 plus players on the our 2 Irish mens and womens teams A andB, thats where you pick your players from not from out dated and very expensive inter pros.
All those thousands should be spent on promoting the game at under age,When was last time a new boys secondary school took up hockey.If schools dont want to take it up give that wasted money to the clubs to hire qualified coaches and improve facilities for clubs.
As we stand, our dream to get to the Olympic games in the near future is miles away and will only be relaised from a strong playing base ,not like the disaster we have in Munster at the moment.
I express my views in order to get a debate going rather that look at Rome burn!!!
How else exactly are UCC meant to get players – develop an underage system so that they can keep U10s and U12s? That’s a ridiculous statement. That’s what all colleges do, they ”rob peter to pay paul” and if the clubs in Munster supported them in doing this, there would be a third good team in Munster and would allow the big 2 to bring through their youth players. Alas they are shortsighted and fail to see the bigger picture.
I agree how are CI and Quins meant to compete at the same level as the Leinster and Ulster teams when they play big games week in week out in their own respective leagues.Then “WE” i.e Ci and Quins have to perform for the odd big game i.e Ihl,irish senior cup etc! and its sometimes hard to compete with them.
Not sure that this is relevent to Adam moving to Pembroke and playing in his first game.
Well done Adam, hope all goes well for you.
We need more players its as simple as that on the mens side. In reality we only have enough quality players to sustain 3 to 4 clubs at a healthy level and none at the highest level in Ireland.
But lets not forget that in Ulster the numbers of boys/ men playing the game is dropping as well.
This sport is really struggling in the whole country.
To compete in the AIL/IHL you need at least a squad of 18 to 20 quality players, neither C of I or Harlequins have this. If they loose many more or fail to replace them they will be at the bottom for years to come in the AIL/ IHL.
If that happens I would feel the game is dead in Munster. It will be a social game, played for laughs and not to try and perform on a national stage.
Further the sport in Munster is kept going by a few who have tried many times to get more people interested in volunteering and giving to the sport. Getting critisised for trying to succeed, to help, to make a difference, lots have tried, taken it repeatedly on the chin and are now walikg away.
The truth is the number of volunteers is dropping at Munster level but these same people are putting all their effort into working for their clubs to try and keep them afloat or help make them successful.
Again I say the answer is NUMBERS the more we have the more you have in each club. Clubs need to get players/ coaches into schools, fund these people and have a long term development plan that is based on at least 5 years. But alas, money is short and good-will is also short so i fear for the game.
There is a seriously depressing tone to the posts here!
While a lot of what you say at senior level is correct, this is not the case at underage. Quins, CI, Bandon, Limerick, Institute and Ashton (hope I haven’t left anyone out) have thriving boys’ sections. Institute for example, doubled its boys numbers last year at underage, Quins grew as well with an influx of kids from local schools, as have Bandon, Ashton and Limerick and CI have always attracted numbers too.
Naturally this didn’t happen overnight and significant investment from the IHA (despite what think Old Vet) in terms of equipment for clubs and schools, blitz days, new school development and financial help through the to clubs to help pay for pitch hire, transport, event hosting etc. have gone into helping to make this happen – the province has received substantial grants from the IHA to develop the underage and it is working. Of course the clubs have put in significant time and effort themselves to put structures in place and develop good programmes, if you don’t believe it, go to an U14 league match or one of the U10&U12 blitzes, or come and watch a primary school blitz.
As for coaching, we are getting there as well, our Level 1 was full in July and we ran Level 2 as well. Several clubs have organised their own introductory courses and we also run a programme for teenagers to help them get into coaching and umpiring.
Our biggest issue on the boys side is developing the sport in secondary schools, it’s not a simple case of knocking on the door with a bunch of sticks. Many schools don’t want to take it on, some have no facilities and some have students who have no interest. I agree, it not good for Munster to have only 5 boys schools playing and we will continue to try to get more on board.
I think Phil Oakley is going in exactly the right direction introducing the game in primary schools, although it will take a long time to see decent results. I think a good primary school network will provide the foundation on which the sport is to grow. The clubs also need to make more of an effort to fill their underage systems, do any of them visit local primary schools with promotional material? Videos can be very effective at that age.
I think everyone is a bit pessimistic hockey is a great game, it just unfortunately has an image problem with many teenage boys but it is getting more airtime and exposure on TV. If you want to do something email Glen.Killane@rte.ie Head of Sport at RTE or maybe TV3 and convince him to cover the EHL matches as we have two representatives.